Karnataka - Bellary   

Tough triangular fight likely Key constituency: bellary

BELLARY: Bellary, known for its swanky cars, famous for its seen-to-be-believed penthouses of the iron ore business magnates, sky rocketing prices of the landed property and emerging powerful politicians with their money power making waves in the State politics, is one of the most backward cities without basic amenities, good roads and assured drinking water supply.

Come elections, these money bags come out of their groove knocking at the doors of the electorate holding out promises, but once the elections are over, these promises remain only on paper and the elected representatives become a scarce commodity.

Bellary is also one of the highly polluted cities owing to transportation of iron ore in trucks through the city from the mines. Ever since the quality-rich iron ore, available abundantly in the district, saw a boom in the international market in 2004, its transportation increased multi-fold through rail and also by road.

On an average every day more than 5,000 trucks pass through the badly damaged roads and the cry for good roads, which can withstand the flow of the heavy vehicles carrying the iron ore, have not been met so far.

The long-pending demand of the people for a bypass road so that the iron ore carrying trucks does not pass through the city has fallen on the deaf ears. In addition, 30 sponge iron units have come up in and around the city limits.

The Bellary City Assembly Constituency was represented by the former Minister B. Sriramulu for a term (2004-08). This time, sitting corporator and former Mayor G. Somasekhar Reddy is contesting on the BJP ticket and is likely to face one of the stiffest fight from the former BJP MLA Anil Lad, who is fighting on the Congress ticket and M Diwakar Babu, a former Minister and JD(S) candidate.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Tough triangular fight likely Key constituency: bellary
36 pull out
Alternative identity cards for voters

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu